Day 11, Much Mixed News

Just a quick dump of of the latest developments, without much wordsmithing or looking for the sliver lining, because there is a lot going on.  Today started off with an 8am cystoscopy, which involves inserting a scope into the bladder to have a look around through the only way in: the "urethra", which I put in quotes because I'm using it as a euphemism for the most personal part of a man's anatomy.

And despite the use of a "numbing agent", this HURT!, not unlike a hot knife being inserted.  I screamed out in pain like a little kid.  My wife in the waiting room heard me.  I'm sure everybody in the office heard it.  The doctor described my "urethra" as "a little sensitive".  No shit!

The result of this was the finding of a polyp in the bladder, which is probably cancer unrelated to the prostate cancer.  Great!  But this is little more than a speed bump in the grand scheme of things.  Wednesday I'll go in for an outpatient operation which will remove the polyp and fill my bladder with a chemotherapy fluid to prevent recurrence.  This is highly routine and low risk.  The only concerning thing is that my dad had this exact same procedure about a dozen times because it kept recurring no matter what they tried to stop it.  We won't think about that right now.

The biopsy and MRI results were also discussed.  Yes, it is cancer, and yes, it is aggressive.  But the cancer was only in half of the prostate, which means it didn't spend long there before spreading to other parts of the body.  Generally, the urologist thought this was better news than he was expecting.

So from there off to the radiation oncologist.  We'll ignore the bit about this doctor being a bit more straight spoken with zero tendency to sugar coat things.  But his role in my treatment will be limited.  Starting tomorrow and for the next 5 days I'll be getting beam radiation treatment aimed at addressing the sources of pain which hopefully will get me moving around easier.  This nuclear attack is just the opening salvo focused on the problematic metastases.  The system wide chemical attack will come after.

On Wednesday morning, I'll be meeting with the medical oncologist.  This is the doctor which will likely prescribe chemotherapy, and this will be the cornerstone of my treatment.  In fact, the radiation oncologist's urgency to get me into treatment quickly was so he could "get out of the way" of the chemotherapy he expects is coming.

Despite the radiation oncologist's rather pessimistic demeanor, he did say that the field of chemotherapy is exploding with new options.  Dawne also pointed out that even though he spoke in terms of "extending life" and not "cure", that extension provides more time for better treatments to become available.

So if you've been keeping track of this all, you'll notice that Wednesday will be a packed day of meeting the medical oncologist, getting a radiation treatment, and finally surgery for the bladder polyp.  Of course, the surgery means I can't have food after midnight, so I'll be starving through all of that.  If this doesn't count as an all out assault on cancer, I don't know what does.

So hopefully by next week I'll be feeling less pain, just in time to go onto chemotherapy and probably be sick to my stomach and lose my hair, so I got that goin' for me (to make a Caddyshack reference).  Stay tuned!